It seems like this always happens

It seems like every time I have to go on my own to an unfamiliar airport in a semi-unfamiliar city things go wrong.  In San Francisco I slept through my alarm; in Edinburgh the taxi was late picking me up to go to the bus station, I had to catch a later bus to Glasgow and then no one had told me that the airline wouldn't let me board without an onward ticket or long-term visa.  Heck, even in Boston I got delayed for two days back in July.

 

In Hong Kong it was something else, but it happened again.  I had one simple errand to do, drop off some library books then find my bus stop and take care of e-mail at the library.  If I had time I might get some breakfast or look for DVDs after I got back to my hotel.  Had trouble sleeping, as I usually do in these situations, and woke up in plenty of time to take a shower, get the last few things packed (most of which I'd done the night before), get dressed, and out the door a little after 9.  Good.  Take the subway to, let's see, Central, it's the Hong Kong Central Library, and I've been in the vicinity of Central several times, can probably get my bearings from there, good.

 

Get off, no, this isn't quite right.  Look at the map to try to figure out which way to go.  Get on the tram so I can see where I'm going, which way?  Towards the ferry terminal, that's where we started that morning, we went from the ferry terminal to the library.  A few stops past the ferry and things don't look right.  Oh.  We went FROM the ferry, through Central and Admiralty to the library.  I've just gone twenty minutes the wrong way.  I think.  Get off, wait for a tram, aren't any, hop on a bus that might be headed the right direction, watch the tracks.  When we leave them I hop off and go wait again.  Not too long either, a tram comes along and I get in, praying that I'm going the right direction this time.  I recognize more and more things from when we were here before, and at last, yes, there it is.  I finally reached the library about 11am, very quietly and very totally freaking out, as that was the time when I had planned to be checking out of the place I was staying and finding the bus for the airport.

 

Well, everything at the library went okay, found the address for the airport bus stop, and had no choice but to rely on public transportation to get me back Kowloon-side, where I'd spent the night.  (Hong Kong is actually much bigger than I used to think.  There's the main island and Kowloon, across the little strait that separates the island from the mainland, I think most people are dimly aware of those two places.  But then there are a bunch of other little islands, one which has the airport and Disneyland, and there are the New Territories, which go well onto the mainland and are probably as big as the rest of the territory combined.)  I made it to the hotel just before noon to check out and dashed out the door with no time to lose.  I'd checked the area map on my way out of the subway and was able to find the bus stop pretty easily.  Fortunately, I didn't have to wait too long, but I did waste precious minutes at an ATM, as I'd run out of money only HK$17 (about US$2) shy of what I needed.

 

Unfortunately, the bus was slower than I'd thought it would be.  I must have set a new personal best time for getting in and out of an airport, if not quite the world record.  The bus arrived at the airport at 1:30, a scant 50 minutes before my flight.  By the time I'd found the entrance, the Cathay Pacific counters, and been checked in by a very nice attendant (she must be nice, since she normally dealt with elderly, special needs, and frequent-flying business people), the 13:55 printed in bold on my ticket was telling me I had less than 10 minutes to get through customs, immigration, security and find the gate.  Somehow I made it without even running, despite having to catch a train to another terminal.  Although I do say so myself, I'm a pretty competitive walker and was passing people right and left, zigging and zagging through the crowd, do a spin move around that little kid...  (By the way, did anyone see any of the Walking competition the year it was an exhibition sport at the Olympics?  Yeah, I know, I was surprised too.  One of the guys had a rainbow with clouds painted on his cheek; that kind of summed it up for me.  But I digress...)  I made it to the gate right on time, and just 25 minutes after I'd arrived.  People were still lining up, I'm not even sure if they'd opened the doors, so I took advantage of the opportunity to go fill my water bottle and let my heart rate drop down to something approaching normal for the first time all day.  Including the time the bus was on airport property and the airplane was taxiing and taking off, I couldn't have been at the airport for more than an hour and a half.

 

It was a nice flight, things went smoothly going through Korean customs and immigration, and my bus pulled up just as I figured out which one to get on, quite effectively shutting up the taxi driver who had been trying to convince me that it was worth paying 7 1/2 times the bus fare to avoid a long wait.  Now the weather's nice and brisk, it gets dark a little early, it feels like fall, and sort of like home.  I'm glad to be back.